How Robot Sea Monster Is Bringing Murals to Life with Web AR Share: Robot Sea Monster Score Awaiting client review n/a Date Published 16 July 2019 Reading Time 2-Minute Read Robot Sea Monster unites with muralist Susan Green, founder of artforces.org, to revolutionize the way you experience murals with new AR technology. Talking Murals How Robot Sea Monster Is Bringing Murals To Life With Web AR The Challenge Susan Green, a muralist and the founder of Art Forces: https://artforces.org/, is well-versed in both murals and community culture. In the past, Susan conducted several successful experiments to unite the two. Through app development and the use of QR codes posted near murals, Susan was able to direct viewers to a website that shared additional information about the murals. But she quickly learned she needed something better to bring her artistic vision of “talking murals” to life. How could Susan share the stories behind these murals if no one was willing to download and install an app that would allow them to scan the required QR codes? Not only that, how could she sustain this method when apps require constant updating just to keep up with the newest operating systems put out by the various phone manufacturers? Susan needed something simpler to provide an easily accessible record that wouldn’t deteriorate over time. Our Actions Our first steps were to collaborate closely with Susan and create a features list, which we then prioritized together based on her artistic vision for this project. We took that material and built out a full product roadmap that led from a proof-of-concept demo through to an MVP launch. Next, we designed an interactive city map that marked the locations of many murals. Each access point on the map would correspond to an AR experience that would take the user on an exploration of the mural’s context and the artist’s intent. To make this possible we used a machine-learning-based cloud image recognition capability combined with a modern mobile web stack to build a mobile-friendly web page that provided image recognition and augmented reality information to the user. This simply means that any camera-enabled smartphone could access the AR information for each access point via the default browser—no special app required. The Results We provided Susan with a product-launch roadmap and a working technology proof-of-concept demo for her Talking Murals vision. She was able to take that demo and showcase it to investors. We are now continuing development with Susan, working through to the MVP launch of the final package.